Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy (FIIA), Toni Alarantatold Yle on Tuesday that he was surprised at how quickly Finland, Sweden and Turkey reached an agreement on NATO applications from the two Nordic countries.
The officials were signed by the foreign ministers of Turkey, Sweden and Finland "memorandum of understanding" The NATO summit in Madrid on Tuesday reaffirmed Turkey’s support for welcoming the two Nordic countries to the alliance. The agreement came after four hours of negotiations.
Alaranta said that despite the president Sauli Niinistö and the Prime Minister of Sweden Magdalena AnderssonThe company’s cautious optimism about the possible outcome of the negotiations on Monday, expectations remained low.
Matters dealt with on Tuesday may need to be reconsidered, Alaranta said, especially if they leave much room for interpretation. In addition, Turkey may invoke this ambiguity at a later stage.
The memorandum commits Sweden and Finland not to support certain parties considered by Turkey to be terrorist groups and to brand the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization. Both Finland and Sweden also agreed to lift the arms embargo against Turkey.
In addition, the document mentions the tightening of terrorist crime legislation that has already entered into force in Finland and the forthcoming new terrorism legislation in Sweden.
Niinistö said that a solution was reached in discussions between diplomats.
On the same day, the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg announced that Finland and Sweden will be invited to join the military alliance as early as Wednesday. Thereafter, the membership of the two countries should be ratified separately by each Member State.
Source: The Nordic Page